Blood and Each Other
by Tiki Rane Gobell
Summary: The group comes across an interesting inmate at the prison. Is he just insane or does magic really exist? DD/HP Slash
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I owe neither Walking Dead or Harry Potter. Any characters or quotes that you recognize do not belong to me. I also make no promises of updates or to complete this story. I have, however, planned it to be a short story - maybe 5 chapters.

Chapter 1: The Meeting

In the ruckus and urgency of the situation, not one of the group noticed the watching eyes as Rick hacked Hershel's infected leg off.

"Holy shit," cursed one of the prisoners, arms coming up in surrender at the same speed as Daryl's crossbow came up in threat. For a second, there was silence - apart from Hershel's heaving breaths.

_With luck, he might be saved. Without luck, well...that fate waits for us all. I was always a man to take my chances._

The rest of the group rush off to try to stabilize Hershel or kill him, if the case arise.

_Arise, just like Lazarus. Well, not exactly. I think someone would have noticed and written down the dead walking and eating the living._

"There's no government, no hospital, no police," Rick informs the prisoners. "It's all gone."

_The irony - a police officer still feels like he has to be in charge of the prisoners. Or is that a coincidence. Shit - English class never did me any good in high school. It damn isn't doing anything now._

The men in the group do not let the prisoners enter the cell block they've just cleaned out.

_Who knows what type of men they are? And they don't know what type of men we've become. Only some of us were monsters before. The world has created monsters of us all if we want to survive._

_ I had to learn to survive from monsters long before the dead started walking._

"We were here first!" They were a raggedy bunch - a guard had locked them in the cafeteria for their protection and had never came back. That was ten months ago. The group met Tomas (the ring-leader that declared the prison theirs), Big Tiny, Andrew, Dexter, Axel, and a sixth member that certainly looked out of place ("He was in this place before I came. I don't know his name. He never talks. We call him Zeus - for his scar," Axel informs the group). Axel is certainly the most charismatic of the inmates.

_I wonder how he got locked up. I wonder how useful he is to kill walkers. _

The group and the inmates came to an alliance of sorts. They'd live separate but equal as soon as they cleaned out another cell block.

The stress was high as the truth set in. "He can't even walk," Maggie cries. "All we do is run." And who will be able to deliver Lori's baby comes up in conversation.

_Why couldn't we run into a bunker of hiding doctors?_

"Just remember to go for the brain," instructs Rick, right before leading the prisoners to a new cell block. Everyone could feel the crunch of time bearing down on them. "Stay in tight formation. No more prison riot crap."

_Always the cop..._

Big Tiny is the first to go down. Not quite dead yet, but infected.

_The bigger they are the harder they fall?_

Tomas takes care of the situation mid-debate with a crowbar. A few minutes later, Daryl has to save Rick's life from a walker that Tomas has shoved at him. When the horde is dealt with, "Shit happen," Tomas defends his actions as self-defense. Rick smiles and agrees. Rick's machete doesn't agree.

_Not always the cop_ _it seems_. _That's two of six prisoners down. Who are we cleaning out this cell block for? Will there be anybody left to live here by the time we finish?_

The prisoner Andrew was not happy with Tomas' death. He is also no match for Rick's fighting experience and tries to flee. A baseball bat stops his escape and crushes his scull in one move.

_That is a dead man that won't be walking again. Three prisoners down._

The mysterious "Zeus" wipes his bat on Andrew's shirt, cleaning the blood off.

_Hot damn. And damn hot._

Regardless of the assistance just given, Zeus gets locked in the cell block with all the fresh corpses and the two other prisoners. "You just gonna leave us in here?" asks Oscar.

"Take it or leave it," Rick replies. "That was the deal."

The two prisoners bemoan their fate. The third and silent one sits near the bars of the cell block and stares into space. Daryl silently thanks him for his assistance with a nod of his head. No words are needed. For the first time, Zeus looks Daryl in the eyes. Daryl is taken back by how green and perfectly almond shaped his eyes are and how sincere just the action of a returned nod seems.

_Just look but don't feel anything. Always just look never feel anything._

Hershel seems like he is going to recover from the trauma when they return to the block but Carol is still practicing should the worse happen. All things considered, when the heads hit the pillows that night, the group felt the safest it had felt since leaving the farm.

_And if I dream of green eyes tonight...then a man cannot control his dreams._


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I owe neither Walking Dead or Harry Potter. Any characters or quotes that you recognize do not belong to me.

Chapter 2: A Touch of Warmth

It was time for a clean up after the blood bath if they ever wanted to get the prison to livable conditions. The prison yard already smelled horrible but would only start to smell worse if it got to sit in the sun. T-Dog wanted to let the prisoners join the group as they begged from their gate to the yard. The group was undecided.

_No government, no police and yet they still managed to get locked up._

Rick decides separate but equal is the way it should stay. It was their original agreement. If they didn't like it, Rick could send them on their way.

_Even if half of the original prisoners are dead. And two are here begging...where's Mister Dark and Handsome?_

"But you let him out!" protests Andrew, pointing towards the farthest fence. Sure enough, Zeus was standing with his fingers threaded in the fence, looking out into the green woods and seemingly perfectly content in the early sun.

"Who let him out?" Rick practically roared. He looked around to his people, but no one had an answer.

Rick's was beside the escapee with his gun to Zeus's head before anyone else had moved. Daryl quickened to join him before anything could get out of hand.

"How did you get out?" Silence met Rick's query. The prisoner didn't even seem to realize the officer had a gun to his head.

_Or he didn't care..._

Rick cocked his gun with an auditory clank. "Answer me!" Still no response. With a click, Rick pulled the trigger...but there was no bang. A malfunction. Rick stared at his gun in shock.

"Whoa man! Chill!" Daryl tried to calm the officer down. Zeus still hadn't made a move, apathetic to his almost-death. "He probably just wants to taste freedom for a little while. They've been locked up for 10 months and however long before that. We've got to let them out."

_Who are you? _

Rick's chest was heaving and his eyes were wide in some emotion that Daryl couldn't explain just yet. The shocked man gave Daryl a nod and the keys before stumbling to parts of the prison unknown. Later that day, Daryl would overhear Rick talking to Hershel about how he was glad his gun hadn't worked because he didn't want to become that type of man and how close he was to losing himself. Hershel no doubt had some good advice, but Daryl had walked away before he heard on a quest of his own.

"Come on, let's get this place cleaned up," Daryl addressed the group. They started working to rid the yard of bodies, later to be set on fire. Zeus seemed to want to stay at the fence. Daryl put his hand on the man's arm. "Come, you too." The green-eyed man looked down at Daryl's touch, then to Daryl's eyes, searchingly. Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it, because Zeus joined the group to help cleaning. Daryl let the other two prisoner's out to join them, his fingers still oddly tingling from the warm arm.

After a meal of surprisingly better quality than usual thanks to the new supplies, Daryl was checking his arrows for wear, repairing what he could and throwing a glance at the odd silent prisoner trying to figure him out whenever he had the chance.

"He's always like that," the prisoner Axel commented to Daryl. Daryl made a sound that Axel must have taken as a sign to expand. "Zeus, he is always staring into space like that - not seeing anything or maybe seeing something we can't, like a hallucination."

_When did I become a gossip girl? _

Rick was also nearby cleaning his gun and then counting bullets to see how many were left.

_Why count? We know that we will run out of bullets long before we run out of the dead._

"What did he do to get in here?" the once-sheriff asked.

_Ah! Story time again. What grand entertainment we have stumbled upon in this little haven._

Axel had already told Carol and whoever cared to listen about being imprisoned for armed robbery...with a water pistol. He seemed to be an okay guy.

_Other than how he couldn't seem to stand the sound of silence. _

"He doesn't talk, but I heard guards talking about him. Apparently he is in here for murder. Killed a dozen of people, they say. His lawyer tried to get him into an asylum. He claimed insanity and said Zeus thought he was a wizard and was killing dark wizards he thought were after him. Said he has a paranoia disorder or something. I don't know how much is true. Because he's not talking, are you Zeus?" The last question, of course, was directed at their resident mute. And, like had become normal, the black-haired man did not respond or even look in Axel's direction. But Daryl was sitting in just the right spot to catch the change in the man's eyes.

_I know that look. When you want to roll you eyes so badly but that response has been beat out of you long ago._

Daryl continued to watch the quiet man.

_He looked at me last night and today...what does that mean? Does it mean anything at all?_


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I owe neither Walking Dead or Harry Potter. Any characters or quotes that you recognize do not belong to me.

**Chapter 3: Magic Within**

Daryl threw a notebook on the floor by Zeus's feet right where the silent man was staring into space. Even with the sudden loud clatter, the man did not start.

_Did he hear me coming or does he not care what happens to him?_

"For you," Daryl clarifies, and follows the statement by throwing an unopened pack of pens on top of the notebook - products of an earlier quest around the prison office near their cell block. Though Rick had seen some sense and had allowed the prisoners to join the group in their cell block, the prisoners were required to be locked in their cell from dinner to breakfast, for safety. Daryl didn't argue. The group didn't argue. No one had argued with Rick since the farm. But they could see the cracks forming on Rick from the stress. Only time would tell if this prison would offer the time to heal or if it would push Rick over the edge.

_Humpty-dumpty had a great fall._

The green-eyed man didn't look up, so Daryl let him be. However, right as Daryl turned the corner but not quite out of sight, he got to witness the mute jumping upon the gifts like a starving man upon food.

_Speaking of starving, green eyes barely ate anything for dinner. He's much too skinny. Maybe I can get a deer tomorrow._

A little after breakfast the next morning Daryl was in the prison yard fixing up his bike. Glenn and Maggie were on fence duty, attracting walkers close enough to pierce their heads with stakes. Rick was in the guard tower, thinking of the best ways to improve and protect the prison. Lori was in the cell block on Hershel's ordered bed rest to postpone the delivery as long as possible so that he had a chance to heal. Hershel was up and moving on crutches with the help of his youngest daughter and Carl. Carol and T-Dog were nowhere in sight - probably doing chores or designing something for the group's comfort. T-Dog had mentioned something about water.

Axel came up to Daryl's bike, checking it out. "I really appreciate you convincing Rick to let us join your cell block. I know some stuff about bikes. I could give it a tune up if you like."

_You talk too much._

Daryl ignored him until he heard a surprised inhale. "Goddamn, would you look at that. I've never seen him like that."

Daryl looked up to see what he was talking about to find his green-eyed man approaching with a small, barely-there smile gracing his lips. He looked more aware than even Daryl had seen him so far.

As the mute man approached, Axel ran off.

_That might be worth keep Zeus around if he can chase off motor-mouth so quickly._

Daryl had checked in on the man right after breakfast because he had not shown up to eat, but Zeus had ignored him and was furiously writing in the notebook. Daryl had let him be.

Zeus crouched next to Daryl, surveying the motorcycle. Without looking at Daryl, the man handed him a folded note made out of a torn slip of paper.

Daryl wiped his hands on a rag and unfolded the note. **"Thank you,"** it read. The writing was loopy and neat. It looked like the handwriting from a time long gone.

Barely had he finished reading when another note was handed to him. **"How did you know?"** the second note said.

"Just a hunch," grunted Daryl as he went back to working on his bike. The mute man watched him work, occasionally handing Daryl a tool. The silent presence was comfortable. Daryl was cleaning up when another note was handed to him.

**"Can I go out there? I wanna go for a walk."** Daryl handed the note back to Zeus.

"Let me grab my crossbow. We can go hunting. "

They were walking in the woods about two miles away from the prison. Daryl had shot two squirrels so far but was hoping to get a deer as well. Zeus had been his usual silent self the entire time. He barely made any noise when he walked Daryl noticed as he tried to figure him out.

_I would probably have more squirrels if I was giving them as much attention as I am giving him._

Daryl couldn't help it though. The man was odd. Daryl could tell he was looking for something in the woods by the way he was zigzagging around. Occasionally, the man would stop to inspect a plant, or a stick, or something that Daryl wasn't entirely sure was real even though the man seemed to pluck something right out of the air and stick it in a bag Daryl had loaned him.

_Hallucinating?_

Daryl had also given the man a knife for protection, though the man was using it to snag pieces of plants and bugs as they went along.

Eventually they came across an apple tree with small, tart green apples on it. They climbed into the tree to eat in peace, far away from any walkers that could stumble upon them. They had hardly come across any walkers on the way; those they did come across were dealt with quickly and efficiently.

"You're odd," Daryl finally broke the silence with the truth after taking a bite of apple.

The man looked startled for a moment before searching out his pen and pad of paper**. "Am I?"** he wrote and held up for Daryl to see. He appeared amused more than anything.

"I mean, I don't understand you," Daryl tried again.

**"What do you want to know?"** came the reply.

Daryl considered this for a bit.

_Are you really insane? And, if not, do you like cocks? _ _Or maybe that's not a good start._

"What's your name?" Daryl asked.

**"What's yours?"**

_Touché._

"Daryl Dixon."

**"Harry."**

_Just Harry?_

"Have you always not been able to talk?"

**"No."** With this note, Harry also pointed to his mouth, then opened it to show Daryl that his tongue had been cut out.

_Fuck!_

They sat without communicating for a few minutes more, each crunching on an apple, eating it all, even the core.

_Waste not, want not._

_I want to know what happened to his tongue, I best not waste this time then._

"So how did it happen?" Daryl finally asked. "Your tongue," he clarified at Harry's bewildered look.

_Had it been that long? _

**"My government wanted to control me."** came the reply.

"Your government? Not ours?"

**"I'm not American. I'm British."**

"What are you doing in a georgian prison then?"

**"They sent me away where no one could find me.** **My government was scared of me. Of what I knew, of what I could do."**

"What can you do?" asked Daryl.

**"Magic."**

_Goddamn! He's insane. Fuck! _

"**You don't believe me?"** Daryl tried to ignore the hurt look on Harry's face.

"I don't believe in magic," Daryl scoffed.

**"The dead are walking and you don't believe in magic?"**

_Touché again. Two Harry, zero Daryl._

"I believe in science."

**"And how is your science doing for you to understand this situation, the end of the world."**

"I don't know. I failed science in school."

And there it was. Laughter. Daryl had made the man laugh. Whether the man was insane or not, it didn't matter if Daryl could keep making him make that musical sound - the first sound he ever heard the man make and Daryl was beginning to fall in love.

**"I'll make you believe in magic, Daryl. I promise you that." **stated the last note before they headed back.

_Please do._

Harry wasn't any less odd on the trip back, stopping to carefully pluck the eyes out of a beetle.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I owe neither Walking Dead or Harry Potter. Any characters or quotes that you recognize do not belong to me.

Chapter 4: Make You Believe

Now that Daryl knew that Harry didn't have a tongue, dinner made more sense when he saw the man not eat much at all. Eating must be such a chore for him.

"Don't you want to eat some more, Zeus?" Carol asked kindly. He could tell that she wanted to mother the slight man.

_He's probably almost 30 Carol. There's that aborted eye-roll again. Why? Oh._

"His name is Harry, Carol," Daryl corrected, ignoring the attention the group suddenly gave him.

"Well, then, Harry, please have as much as you'd like," Carol offered.

_A dangerous offering when food is so hard to come by._

Harry gave her another of his small smiles and shook his head before walking to his cell to be locked up for the night.

"I'll take it," Axel volunteered, grabbing the spoon in the pot of rice and squirrel meat - tonight's dinner - but quickly dropping the spoon with a yelp when Carol smacked his hand with a spatula.

"You've had your share!" she chastised Axel then looked toward Daryl. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked him regarding their silent companion.

Daryl shrugged, not wanting to talk about it in front of everyone. "Maybe it's just your cooking," Daryl suggested, which got him hit with a spatula as well.

Later that night when they were all tucked away for the night, Daryl approached Carol to talk. She had been his confidant for months and he knew she would have the advice he needed. "He talked to me today. Well, wrote to me actually. He's missing his tongue."

"And what did he say?" she prompted.

"Do you think he's crazy?" Daryl jumped right to it.

"I think we're all a little crazy these days. No one is left untouched."

"He believes in magic and that the government is out to get him." Daryl said shortly. Carol was only taken aback for a moment.

"Well, maybe he is just a bit crazier than the rest of us. Or maybe, he's perfectly sane. With everything that has happened, I'm not sure what's possible anymore." She paused, considering. "What does your heart tell you?" she finally asked. Daryl pulled out a knife to play with, sharpening it and ignoring the question.

_Sometimes it's hard to hear my heart over all the protests my dick is making._

Finally Daryl said, "I don't think he's dangerous."

"Nor do I," Carol agreed. "I can feel it."

Daryl thought that was the end of their conversation. He was wrong.

"You don't want him to be insane," Carol concluded after a bit. "Because of how you're feeling for him."

"Pssh, you don't know what you're talking about, woman." Daryl was starting to freak out.

"I've been watching you two. He's different around you as well. There's something there. A magnetism I've rarely ever seen. Don't be afraid of it. I'll always support you, Daryl."

Daryl slipped out before he had to face the truth. Before he had to admit the truth to Carol, who would know if he was lying if he tried to deny it.

Daryl walked the yard for a while, taking out walkers that pushed against the fence trying to find some silence to think. Near midnight, he ran out of walkers to kill and instead found his feet taking him to Harry's cell. Everyone else had already gone to bed. Harry was missing from his. Again.

_Where is he?_

Daryl quietly searched and soon found Harry in a room at the end of the block. The room had a window knocked out and was cold from the fall air. No one wanted to be near the cold, so no one else had a room down this far. There, Harry was bent over a large soup pot over an open flame adding meticulously collected and prepared ingredients. Daryl recognized several from the odd bits and pieces Harry had collected when they went hunting. A full moon shone down on the green-eyed man from the window, bathing him in an unearthly silver light. Daryl wasn't sure if he'd ever seen a more beautiful person than Harry in that moment.

_How did you get out? Why are you in here? What are you doing? _

"Why are you in here?" Daryl settled on when Harry turned towards him.

Harry held up a finger then continued to work. Daryl sat down by the furthest wall to observe.

_Just in case you blow something up, I'll be way over here._

Eventually, Harry doused the flame under the pot and picked up a ladle. He poured some of the steaming liquid into a cup from the prison cafeteria and sat it carefully on the floor.

"What are you doing?" Daryl asked again now that Harry wasn't busy.

"Waiting for this to cool then I'm drinking it."

"Why are you doing that?" Daryl rephrased the question.

Harry just gave him a mysterious smile, then blew on the cup to help it cool faster.

Finally, the cup stopped steaming. Harry grabbed his notebook back up. Daryl noticed he was on his last empty page.

**"Making you believe in magic."** he wrote, then chugged the whole cup in two large sips. Harry immediately passed out while holding his throat as if he were choking, giving a muffled cry of pain.

_I think he just poisoned himself._

Daryl shouted for Carol's help.

A/N: I know. Cliff-hanger. But I really couldn't write more in this chapter without ruining the moment. Besides, if you can catch it, there are enough context clues to give you a hint at what just happened. Next chapter is already half written. I'll finish and upload at soon as I can.

TRG


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I owe neither Walking Dead or Harry Potter. Any characters or quotes that you recognize do not belong to me.

Chapter 5: Say the Word

It took a while to get Hershel to see Harry, being so late and with everyone fast asleep.

_Who can sleep deeply anymore?_

Now, Daryl sat by Harry's bed, determined to stand guard as Hershel checked him over. Daryl noticed that the inmate's breathing had become more even while they waiting, though occasionally he still made a choking sound in his unconsciousness.

_Who am I guarding exactly? The group against an inmate or an inmate against the group?_

Daryl wasn't sure who was more upset in the group: T-Dog or Rick. Rick was furious that the prisoner had "broke the rules" by being out of his cell. T-Dog was sure that it was somehow Daryl's doing.

_And we had been getting along so well. Which, of course, means ignoring each other._

Carol took Daryl's side, of course, though Daryl said nothing to defend himself. He just sat there, thumb petting the spine of the composite notebook he had given Carol was able to calm the T-Dog situation down enough.

Finally, Hershel ordered everyone out. Daryl disobeyed and stayed anyway, but Hershel didn't say anything more to him and went about his business of checking the patient over.

"His heart rate is elevated, but it is quickly going back to normal. It seems like the main problem is that he started choking on his tongue. We should keep him sitting up to help with the choking. It doesn't seem like he is poisoned like you thought. His eyes are not dilated at all and I see no other side effects that would suggest it, such as throwing up."

Daryl didn't hear anything except _choking on his own tongue_.

_But I saw his missing tongue with my own two eyes!_

While the doctor (veterinarian), collected his supplies, Daryl checked for himself. Sure enough a full tongue was in Harry's mouth.

_Well, I'll be damned._

"Hershel, I _saw_ that this man was missing his tongue. He showed me! It's why he never talked."

"Did anyone else see the missing tongue?" Hershel asked. Daryl shook his in the negative.

"Well, it looks like you have three things that you could believe: the first is that you have yourself to blame. You wanted so badly to see what you wanted that you made yourself believe it."

Hershel smiled at Daryl's grunt of displeasure.

_As if!_

"The second," Hershel continued, "you have to believe that you were hoodwinked. That this man tricked you into seeing no tongue, maybe with an angle or shadow trick."

_But what would be the motivation behind that! Why did he drink that liquid tonight?_

"The third thing that could have happened," Hershel finished packing up his supplies and starting toward the door, "is that nothing explainable happened. The impossible and inexplicable. Something...unnatural. Of course, I'm barely even a doctor. So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that book you have holds all the answers. For now, I'm tired and I'm going to bed." And then Hershel was gone, hobbling down the hallway on his crutches, having trouble balancing with his bag.

Daryl threw himself down on the chair by Harry's bed. He checked once more, and yes, there was indeed a tongue, moist and bright red. With a heaving sigh, Daryl opened the notebook he had given Harry, hoping to find an answer.

_Or maybe just more questions._

It was full of recipes made of odd ingredients and completely unsanitary directions. Daryl saw the first one listed a pair a beetle's eyes (crushed) as one of the ingredients.

_Useless._

Flipping through the book, he saw some of his conversations with Harry, but mostly it was full of recipes and Latin words.

_What have I gotten myself involved with?_

"Hey," came a whisper from the bed. Daryl visibly started. It was strange to hear a noise associated with this green-eyed man. Harry sat up against the wall more comfortably. He rubbed at this throat, "Merlin's balls, that hurt worse than skelegrow," he complained.

Daryl didn't know what to say, so he kept quiet.

"I know you probably have questions. I'll try to answer them as best I can," Harry told him.

_Definitely a British accent. And unless it's fake, then his strange story is starting to check out._

"But in the morning," Harry added. "I'm too tired now and you deserve more than a half-arsed attempt to explain everything."

Daryl nodded, still unsure how to take his now-talking companion. "I'll be here," the Dixon brother finally promised.

"I'd like that," Harry whispered before laying back down and pulling the covers up. He was asleep soon after. It was only several hours later, after Daryl had fully exhausted his brain chasing possible answers and questions around endlessly, that Daryl fell asleep in the chair, his head laying on Harry's bed.

This is how Carol would find him the next morning when calling him around for breakfast. She smiled as she shook his shoulder lightly. Even with a gentle touch, Daryl's knife was in his hand in a second before he registered the situation and put it away quickly.

"Good morning."

This greeting came not from Carol, but Harry in his British lilt. Daryl oddly didn't find Harry's accent as annoying as he usually found foreigners, but maybe he was biased in Harry's favor.

"My god!" Carol gasped with a hand over her mouth. This made Harry chuckle quietly.

"I know, it's going to take some getting used to. For me as well. It's been at least ten years since I've heard my own voice. Now something smells wonderful," he changed the subject effortlessly.

"Breakfast," Carol announced, motioning the way, and still in shock.

Harry pulled himself out of bed, straightened his clothes, flattened his hair, and then squeezed Daryl's shoulder as he made his way to eat.

_I'd be excited too if it was my first time tasting something in a decade._

"How?" Carol asked.

"I'm not sure yet," Daryl answered.

"Last night?"

Daryl nodded, then strode off after Harry, his shoulder still feeling on fire from the touch.

At breakfast, Maggie and Glenn announced that they were going to try to raid a nearby supermarket to see if anything was left, especially baby items since Lori could go into labor any day.

"Just in case," went unsaid by everyone, but not unheard.  
~0~0~0~

A/n: So, finally Harry can speak again and just in time for the governor's story arc. As for the context clue in the last chapter, I mentioned that Harry wrote on his very last page of his journal as a little foreshadowing that he would no longer need to write his words. I'm surprised no one guessed it, though several people guessed that Harry would re-grow his tongue. Already this story is longer than I thought I would make it. I'll keep going as long as the inspiration strike. I already know the ending(happy), so I just need to choose the paths to get there.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I owe neither Walking Dead or Harry Potter. Any characters or quotes that you recognize do not belong to me.

Chapter 6: The Jury Deliberates

"So you can do magic," Daryl started the conversation.

"For some reason, I don't get the feeling that you believe me," answered the british man. His voice was still slightly hoarse, as it had been since he had _magically _started talking. To say that the group was shocked when Harry strolled into breakfast bidding them good morning was a bit of an understatement.

"All I know is that you can break out of bars really easily and that I might be seeing things," Daryl commented while driving a hunting knife through the skull of an inmate-turned-walker. Next to him, Harry had a hatchet in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. It was his idea to take this stroll down in a part of the prison that they hadn't cleared out yet. As far as Daryl's other dates had gone, it was rather a romantic walk so far.

"It's not your fault - it's a muggle thing to make excuses to explain magic when it happens. Usually I have to turn a desk into a Labrador right in front of the muggle for them to catch on. Ugh!" Harry made a sound of distaste as the brains of the walker he had just bashed splashed down his front.

"Muggle?" the Dixon brother asked.

"What my people call normal people, people who can't do magic."

"Sounds derogatory."

"It is, but it's not our worst name for you. It's actually considered PC," the green-eyed man responded with a small, sad smile.

There were no time for more words as a wave of walkers came down the hall at them. Harry and Daryl worked well together, movements perfectly in sync. Harry was getting good at pushing a walker away with the baseball bat in his left hand to have time to put his hatchet through another walker's scull with his right hand. It was quite the blood bath since the narrow doorway passage in the start of the hall kept the walkers bottlenecked enough for the two experienced fighters not to be overwhelmed. After they dealt with the large group of walkers, the room fell silent except for their hard breathing. Harry's eyes met Daryl's and for those few minutes, the world seemed to revolve around the blood and each other. And maybe, in that moment, Daryl believed in a certain kind of magic that certainly wasn't the same as what Harry was claiming to have. The moment was ruined as everything was in these days at the end of the world: a walker stumbling upon their sacred territory, hungry for a fresh meal.

Daryl took care of the intruder with maybe a touch more force than necessary, but the moment they had shared was gone and couldn't be recaptured.

"Where are we going?" Daryl finally asked.

"Rick said that the Property Ward of the prison should be down in this direction," the maybe-wizard-maybe-crazy-person explained. "I want to make you believe in magic, and that means I need my wand. I'm kind of a useless wizard without it."

"You think they left your wand in storage here?"

"No," Harry shook his head and took off the head of an oncoming walker. "They broke my wand right in front of me. But I had another wand hidden in a ring I wore here. It's always safest to carry a spare."

"What kind of magic can you do without a wand?" Daryl asked, taking a moment to clean the blood off his hunting knife on a walker's shirt. It was starting to get that odd consistency of sticky-slick drying blood becomes and was hard to hold on to.

"I can open most locks, summon items that aren't strapped down securely and aren't too heavy, ignite candles or start a small fire," Harry said lightly, as if _anybody _could do those things. "In a bind, I can usually blast someone away from me. But with a wand...I can't wait to show you!" Harry was either getting excited or crazed. The jury was still out and Daryl would keep an eye on him until the jury finished deliberating.

The walkers seemed to slow for a bit, so Daryl didn't mind asking some more questions.

"You don't seem as...loopy...as you first did," he noted cautiously, afraid to offend the man.

Harry gave a dark chuckle. "I guess I would come off as loopy to someone observing me." The smile slid off Harry's face to be replaced with genuine appreciation when he looked at Daryl. "Freedom from this place and the notebook - that's what fixed it. You gave me both of those."

"How did that help?"

"I was too busy thinking, remembering, to really do anything." Harry opened another door and helped Daryl take out the walkers they found there, conversation halting until they had finished.

"That first year I was in here, I was so angry and in denial. I couldn't believe my people had just thrown me away after everything I had done for them. By the second year, I was resigned. But sometime in that next year, I could barely recall my world - I was forgetting everything about magic! For a while, I really thought I was mental. That I had dreamed it all up and did all the bad things that they said I did. I didn't want to believe it, but I had no proof that my world existed except in my head."

"What changed?" Daryl prompted.

"I kept blowing out the light in my cell. Magic doesn't react well to electronics, you see," Harry clarified. "And then I unlocked my cell door. I started believing again. After that it was a fight to remember my time in the magical world. It is so astonishingly fantastical that it was like trying to remember a dream you had years ago. Luckily I had some rudimentary training of some mind arts. Occlumency is what we call it. I've been using it to sort and remember everything I'd ever seen or learned about magic, every page of every book I'd read: from Quidditch Through the Ages to Moste Potent Potions . But it takes a lot of hard mental work to keep it in that much order - I'm pretty bad at the skill. So, I had to zone out of the real world to keep my magical world together."

As many answers as Daryl had just received, he also had a million more. But where to start?

_Why did they lock you away? What had you done for them? And what is quidditch?_

"So do vampires exist?" Daryl asked. He didn't want to ask too much too soon. Harry was starting to get visibly upset over the story.

"Yes!" Harry said with a chuckle. "And they don't sparkle!" Harry continued his explanantion from vampires to werewolves to unicorns, and was just starting to talk about dragons when they found the right room.

"Jackpot!" Harry exclaimed, trying to find a ledger of how things were stored. Apparently, it was handled by computers now. So Harry was left with going through every crate on the wall shelves that served as storage containers. Daryl went behind him foraging useful pieces of clothing, pocket knives, and shoes.

"Aha!" Harry held up a ring which he then broke the stone off from the top. But suddenly, the stone wasn't a stone anymore and was turning into...a leather-bound trunk.

_Fuck, I'm seeing things again!_

Harry dug through the trunk, tossing aside black robes, at least one pointy hat, and books with pictures on the covers that were moving.

_It's just the light making them look like they are moving._

"I believe I promised you a Labrador to make you believe," Harry announced, holding up a stick of wood. It was knobby but polished. "But first," a wave of the stick, and Daryl felt like he had be scrubbed in a tub. He looked down and noticed he was now completely clean, so walker-blood running down his arms like it had been. Harry did a similar wave at himself and Daryl watched the dirt disappear. Finally, Harry pointed his stick at the desk in the corner of the room, said some hocus-pocus-Latin words, and the desk turned into a black dog, which bounded up to Daryl and licked him in the face before Harry returned it to being a desk.

"Do you believe in magic now? Or do I need to show you - mmph!" Harry got cut off when Daryl pinned him against the desk-that-was-just-a-Labrador and tried to stick his tongue down the wizard's throat.

The Jury finished deliberating and gave the verdict: Not Crazy.

_Or just as crazy as the rest of us._

A/n: I struggled with this chapter, so it took a while to finish. If you're reading my other story Viva la Vida, there will be an update by the end of the night.


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